Our forty-second show!
Ep. 42: Managing Different Diets Within the Home
In this episode, Stacy and Sarah are joined by Danielle Walker from Against All Grain and Brittanie from Three Diets, One Dinner to share tips, best practices, and recipes for families who have multiple eating styles all under one roof.
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The Paleo View (TPV), Episode 42: Managing Different Diets Within the Home
- 0:00 – Introduction
- 1:19 – News & Views
- This weeks guests are Danielle Walker from Against All Grain (with a book to be released in a month!) and Brittanie from Three Diets, One Dinner (with It’s Paleo Ya’ll: Real Recipes from Texas coming soon!)
- This week’s show is on how to accommodate different diets in the home, and both Danielle and Brittanie relate to Stacy’s and Sarah’s households where there are different needs all under one roof
- Stacy is fighting a bug, but in other news got her LifeSpan treadmill desk delivered and will be setting it up soon, she also saw Iron Man 3 recently
- A few weeks ago Stacy and Anne tried to coordinate a double-header movie date, but Stacy mistakenly bought tickets for the wrong show so they could only see one of the movies and had to reschedule the second
- What does everyone bring to the movies for snacks?
- Stacy brought apples and chicken liver mouse to the movies and sometimes brings nuts
- Danielle doesn’t go to the movies often, and the last time she tried to go to the movies the movie date with her husband was cancelled because of book editing – but she typically brings water when she does go
- Sarah takes a cheat and has popcorn if she is feeling well
- Brittanie has popcorn as well, but gets a popcorn baby from eating it – well worth it though
- When Brittanie started her blog she was managing three diets in her house: she was on paleo, her husband on SAD, and her son wouldn’t touch anything green
- Brittanie felt like this plan was too expensive and took too much time
- So she started cooking paleo meals for herself and modified from there to make sure that her husband and son could enjoy them
- Her family’s old favorite meal was spaghetti and meatballs, so she made the dish with zucchini noodles and her husband would eat that, but her son wouldn’t
- Her son would have the meatballs and some garlic bread instead of the zucchini
- Eventually she stopped buying the bread, and then she started making paleo versions of the foods they eat, like pizza
- Her husband and son eat dairy, but she doesn’t and just leaves cheese off her side of the pizza and omits where and when she needs to
- She also plays with texture, one of the recipes she makes is an Indian spiced beef with spaghetti squash – her and her husband eat the beef and squash, and for her son she grinds up the spaghetti squash and makes it into a patty with the beef (Brittanie’s son is 4 1/2)
- Sarah’s daughter recently had a run in with dairy and gluten and those are always hard situations to deal with when your kid’s diet is compromised outside of the home – check this podcast out for information on sneak exposures and maintaining a Paleo diet away from home
- Danielle’s household was a slow transfer to paleo just like Brittanie, she started eating paleo before Asher was born and her husband took on a paleo diet to support her
- Overtime her husband would relax his limitations when eating out and would experience negative effects
- Her husband is 95% paleo now, even when he is not with Danielle
- When Asher was little she at first gave him certain items like baby oatmeal and she started him mostly gluten-free, but gave him Annie’s Cheddar Bunnies, which was one of the only things he had with gluten (Stacy notes that Annie’s does offer gluten free products)
- However at PaleoFX she learned a lot that made her reevaluate the structure of her son’s diet to try her best to limit his risk of developing the same autoimmune condition that she has
- Now he is gluten-free, but he does have brown rice cakes and a couple of other items
- For meals Asher eats what Danielle and her husband eat and they encourage him to try everything on the table, but do use Applegate hot dogs or rolled up deli meats when he has an issue with something they are eating
- She has also found that if Asher helps her cook he is more likely to want to eat whatever was made
- One of Asher’s favorite recipes to make with her is Not-a-Grain Bars
- When Brittanie’s son lost interest in cooking with her they started making cooking videos and he loved that addition to the experience
- Stacy notes that you need to stay on your toes and find ways to keep kids engaged in the kitchen
- Sarah’s daughters love to cook with her and she has to manage the chaos in the kitchen, but enjoys them being involved
- For Stacy, her kids have always eaten what her and Matt eat, even before they were paleo
- They always have two options for vegetables at the table
- If someone doesn’t like the choices they don’t eat and make up for it the next day, and Matt and Stacy don’t stress about it
- Stacy and Matt also used gray area foods to help them through the transition with their kids, from things like rice cakes to paleo waffles
- It can take years to manage the transition and there is nothing wrong with that
- Wesley seems to have a gut of steel, Cole isn’t as solid but doesn’t have an issue with nightshades, but it can sometimes be difficult for Finn so they redeveloped his and Stacy’s diet so that they could still enjoy food, but in new ways
- At home they do their best to not serve foods that other members of the family can’t eat
- When Sarah started paleo she was in the habit of catering to her oldest daughter’s dietary needs due to low weight issues from the time she was born
- With her youngest daughter they found out that she had a gluten sensitivity and the whole family transitioned to paleo at the same time, as a result her oldest daughter’s health issues went away as well
- However, when they started paleo Sarah was a short-order cook – her youngest was easy to feed, but her oldest was picky and difficult to feed
- Now the girls eat the same food as everyone else, with Sarah typically eating a different breakfast and lunch from the girls
- Everyone eats the same thing for dinner, there are always two vegetables and fruit on the table
- It takes her older daughter a long time to eat still, but she eats the meals that are served
- Her oldest daughter can handle a bit of dairy, but her youngest can’t handle dairy or tomatoes
- Treats are where it gets difficult because one kid can eat some of the gluten-free items and the other can’t – they work really hard to plan ahead for those situations so that they can have options available, like an emergency Larabars
- They are at a point where Sarah does less cooking than ever before and she is happy with their routine is at
- 40:54 – Science with Sarah: If my food sensitivity screen came back negative for a specific food, can I eat it?
- Short answer – not necessarily, it depends on the food you are talking about
- There are a number of foods that can be problematic for your health in ways that do not show up on food allergy testing – in fact, there are ways that you can be sensitive to foods that won’t show up on a food intolerance test
- The most typical food sensitivity tests are IgE antibody production, IgA, IgG and sometimes IgM
- You can also produce IgD antibodies, which there are no tests for
- You can have direct immune activation that is not through antibodies and will not show up on a test
- You can also have foods feeding bacterial overgrowth or fructose malabsorption, which won’t show up on these kinds of tests
- When you talk about foods like nightshades, there are no tests to check for your sensitivity, you simply have to use elimination dieting
- Foods like gluten can cross the gut barrier and cause a leaky gut and activate the immune system in people without gluten intolerances
- When you are evaluating whether or not a food is a good food for you the most rigorous and simple way to check is to eliminate a food for two weeks to a month and then test reintroduction and see how you feel
- Sneaky reactions can get hard to interpret and that is when an elimination dieting under a health professional can be helpful
- It can also be hard when you are sensitive to multiple things, which is really what the autoimmune protocol essentially is
- When you are looking at a food sensitivity test trying to decide what items to keep and what to eliminate, it really needs to be handled case by case based on your history and what type of food you are talking about
- The Paleo Approach will be a great resource to help you with this, but before that is released look to the autoimmune protocol foods and test eliminating those
- Danielle had an allergy test completed under her naturopath and experienced incredible results from eliminating the foods that were problematic for her
- She eliminated all the items that irritated her system for six weeks and was slowly able to successfully test reintroduction, she is careful with nuts and seeds and stays away from raw nightshades and dairy products from cows
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- 51:06 – Q&A
- Merrick: What are some good nut-free food options for school lunches?
- Coconut flour is the easiest alternative to nut flours
- Real Sustenance and the Paleo Parents have recipes with sunflower seed flour – Danielle also has a recipe for lemon bars that uses sunflower seed flour
- As long as you use raw un-roasted and unsalted sunflower seeds and grind them down you can use it to supplement almond flour 1:1
- The one challenge is that it can turn green if you don’t counter it with an acid to lower the baking soda
- Danielle grinds down her sunflower seeds in her Blendtec and then sifts it to make it as fine as almond flour
- Some recipes use tahini (sesame butter) instead of nut butter
- Danielle thinks that coconut and sunflower are the most versatile and best tasting
- Brittanie doesn’t make a lot of baked goods, and when she does they are typically just for her son and husband
- Her son doesn’t like nuts, so her idea for a treat is to add sweet to savory
- Lately they have been making blueberry egg frittatas and her son really likes those, you can also make coconut chips, Brittanie’s family especially loves the Paleo Parents nut-free Larabars
- Danielle also suggests SeaSnax as they are quick and easy to pack
- Danielle also has an allergy free breakfast cookie on the Paleo Parents site
- You don’t need nuts on paleo, focus on foods that nourish and heal your body
- If you want treats, nuts do make it easier, but there are so many resources available on baking without nuts
- There are so many naturally sweet foods available, dates and fruit, that you don’t need the baked goods necessarily
- It is a difficult mind shift to make, but in all reality nuts aren’t vital to a healthy diet, paleo or not
- Brittanie’s son’s favorite treat is a smoothie that was frozen in the morning into a slushy consistency
- Sarah will have a whole section dedicated to nut-free recipes in The Paleo Approach
- Sarah’s kids don’t get paleo baked goods in their lunch, except as the occasional treat
- (1:01:53) Maggie: What do I do if my boyfriend needs to have gluten in his diet and I can have no exposure to gluten?
- Sarah cannot explain the science behind a type of prescription that would require gluten
- Matt’s brother lived with the Paleo Parents family for a number of years and during that period of time he bought gluten based products in the house and it was difficult for Stacy to have that food in the house because the cookware and appliances were exposed to gluten and the cross contamination exposed Stacy and the kids to the ill effects that can cause
- Sarah suggests using separate cookware, utensils, dishes, etc. – you can’t be too cautious with this
- Try putting the boyfriend on a paleo diet with the exception of gluten, and keep that to the limitation that his prescription requires so that gluten is treated as a prescription and not a food
- Try going to the doctor and understanding if there is a way around the gluten requirement
- Be strict about keeping the gluten outside of the house so that she is not exposed to that
- Stacy also suggests doing a bit of research of ketogenic diets and how they could support his medical condition
- Sarah notes that high omega 3 consumption can be powerful for his health as well
- Thank you to Danielle and Brittanie for joining episode 42!
- Be sure to check out both Danielle’s and Brittanie’s blogs!
- Don’t forget to leave a review at iTunes!
- There will be a ton of giveaways on the Paleo Parents site in the upcoming weeks and everyone will be getting their copies of Beyond Bacon very soon! T-shirts have also been launched on the site, so check them out.
- Merrick: What are some good nut-free food options for school lunches?
- 1:19:51 – Outro
